The Lesser God

Look, a man walks under the bridge-
While most of us still hide under covers
Of slumber and of complacent dreams, 
Of a few minutes of sleep;
This man- with sadness written all over his face, 
With inhuman conviction oozing out of his being
Nonetheless-
This man picks up his world
And waits
Longingly looking at the empty roads
For until the hustle and bustle starts-
Until the chaos of the city plunges it back to normalcy-
The empty roads remind him of his belly
And those of his children 
Who still sleep at their makeshift palace
Content with their sumptuous dinner
Of leftovers and dirty water. 
He waits until the day starts and the sleepy city
Awakes to a raging maelstrom of emotions, 
While he keeps his heart at bay, lest his mind
Decodes his reality he so valiantly ignores. 
He scoffs at the old man who trembles and begs
Of each man who passes- desperate for a meal, 
A coin or a disapproving 'fuck off’. 
Never compromise, his father had taught him, 
The world can never be bigger than you:
He remembers his father, he remembers how he was
When he died- dreadful, desperate, debilitated;
He imagines how he would be and his children-
He shudders and moves on as another man
In a fancy car abuses him in a fancy accent-
The words, however, are too familiar;
Words he had grown up with
That had threatened to shape his whole life-
He thinks of his wife 
How she had held him together when he was all
But pieces;
How they spent hungry nights together and in love;
How she died when she gave him his young daughter-
The light of his life, the fuel of his drive. 
He missed her, as another window closed on his face
Blocking his almost-pleading voice 
Replacing it with the cacophony of music. 
He’s thinking of god now, ignoring his increasing impatience;
He thinks of abandonment- child of a forgetful maker, 
A maker of apparently weak morals and a weaker sense of justice-
As a rich saffron colors his world under the bridge one day;
And an abundant green engulfs it some other day:
And the red-stained painters defy the very concept
Of a loving god still interested in the meat he hexed alive. 
But he watches him as he watches his children
Clinging to his chest, fighting for his love-
Forgetting the pangs of hunger that had crippled them a few moments ago
They gobble down the crinkly rotis their father had smuggled 
Despite his conscience- 
And in their eyes
The proof of god twinkles and in their kisses his love sparkles;
He tucks them in and wishes for Lady Sleep to whisk them away
To where their woes are merely nightmares-
He prepares for another day and another meal. 
Look! A God walks under the bridge.